Catheters may be used for many medical procedures, including inserting a guide wire, delivering a stent and delivering and inflating a balloon. Catheterization procedures are commonly performed for diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the heart and vascular systems. The catheterization procedure is generally initiated by inserting a guide wire into a blood vessel in the patient's body. The guide wire is then advanced to the desired location, most commonly in one of the heart vessels or elsewhere in the vascular system. At this point, a catheter is slid over the guide wire into the blood vessel and/or heart. In some procedures, the catheter is a balloon catheter or stent delivery system that when deployed at the site of the lesion allows for increased blood flow through the portion of the coronary artery that is affected by the lesion.
For manual insertion of a guide wire, the physician applies torque and axial push force on the proximal end of a guide wire to effect tip direction and axial advancement at the distal end. Robotic catheter procedure systems have been developed that may be used to aid a physician in performing a catheterization procedure such as a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The physician uses a robotic system to precisely steer a coronary guide wire, balloon catheter or stent delivery system in order to, for example, widen an obstructed artery. In order to perform PCI, the distal tip of a guide wire must be navigated through coronary anatomy past a target lesion. While observing the coronary anatomy using fluoroscopy, the physician manipulates the proximal end of the guide wire in order to direct the distal tip into the appropriate vessels toward the lesion and avoid advancing into side branches.
A robotic catheter procedure system includes various user input device and drive mechanisms to drive various elongated medical devices (e.g., guide wire, guide catheter, working catheter) used in catheterization procedures to provide linear and rotational movement of the elongated medical device. The user input devices may include analog joysticks that are used by an operator of the catheter procedure system to, for example, advance, retract and rotate a percutaneous device, such as a guide wire, a guide catheter or a working catheter. A joystick may experience a fault or failure (e.g., the joystick may be stuck in an “on” state) that may cause a percutaneous device to move in an unexpected manner or may cause the unintended actuation of the percutaneous device when the user is not touching the joystick.
It would be desirable to provide an interlocking system and method for joysticks in a catheter procedure system that provides a single fault safe joystick interface and that provides faster disabling time for halting the motion of the manipulated percutaneous device,